Hugh Peter

Hugh Peter (29 June 1598-16 October 1660) was an English Puritan preacher and Parliamentarian leader during the English Civil War. He was a staunch supporter of the Parliamentarians and nonconformist Protestants before and during the Civil War, and he also supported the execution of King Charles I of England in 1649. He was executed by the restored King Charles II of England in 1660.

Biography
Hugh Peter was born in Fowey, Cornwall, England on 29 June 1598, and he became an Anglican lecturer at St. Sepulchre's before converting to Puritanism and fleeing to Holland. In 1632, he became minister of the English church in Rotterdam, and he befriended John Winthrop and several other American Puritan colonists. In October 1635, he was made minister of the church at Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and he played a significant role in the 1637 trial of Anne Hutchinson. He later took part in the establishment of the Connecticut colony and Harvard College, and he returned to England in 1641, where he vocally opposed Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud's pro-Catholic policies. His sermons were highly successful in rallying recruits to the Parliamentarian cause during the English Civil War, and he helped to convince the people of the staunchly-Royalist region of Cornwall to submit to Parliament's rule. He became a major leader of the "Independents" after the end of the First English Civil War, earning the ire of the Scots and Presbyterians. He later spoke out in support of Pride's Purge, and he accompanied Oliver Cromwell on his Irish campaign in 1649 and was present at the 1651 Battle of Worcester. Under the English Commonwealth, he served as a preacher at the Palace of Whitehall and initially supported the readmission of Jews to England before changing his mind, arguing that they could never be converted. Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, he was expelled from his lodgings at Whitehall, and he was found guilty of treason and hanged, drawn, and quartered, suffering emasculation and disembowelment.